Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique

Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) is a French professional association collecting payments of artists’ rights and distributing the rights to the original songwriters, composers, and music publishers.

Composers Ernest Bourget, Victor Parizot and Paul Henrion in Paris in 1847 (see 1847 in music) succeeded in having payment made for their works which were being played in the leading café-concert at the time, Les Ambassadeurs. The French courts recognized these legitimate rights founded in revolutionary laws. The provisional union of authors, composers and publishers of music was thus established in 1850, and one year later, the professional union became a society (société civile) of authors, composers, and publishers who divided the author’s rights collected amongst the members, and this rule has been maintained to the present day.

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